Texas’ New Law Takes Aim at Telehealth Medication Abortion Providers

Texas, long at the forefront of restrictive abortion policy in the U.S., has passed a new law (which goes into effect in early December) which would take state law and the already in-place abortion ban (SB 8) and apply it beyond its borders. Jessica Waters, Senior Scholar in Residence at the School of Public Affairs at American University, sits down with us to talk about Texas’ new law restricting telehealth medication abortion, an incredibly common and safe method of care.  

Specifically, the law prohibits the manufacturing and distribution of mifepristone in the state, and outlines the inability to mail, transport, deliver, prescribe, or provide abortion-inducing drugs to anyone in the state. Currently, pregnant people in Texas cannot receive legal abortion care, so they have relied upon out-of-state abortion care. This new law, though, allows for anyone to sue an out-of-state company or medical professional which provides a person in Texas with mifepristone, even if that doctor or company is in a state where abortion is legal. This law is in direct tension with the shield laws that protect against this very scenario. This will likely create a chilling effect on doctors and abortion funds out-of-state. 

For more information, check out Amicus with Dhalia Lithwick: https://slate.com/podcasts/amicus

Transcript

Jennie: 0:35

Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast on all things related to sexual and reproductive health rights and justice. [music intro] Hi rePROs. How's everybody doing? I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she or her. So, y'all, big news today. It was just announced that rePROs Fight Pack won a gold in this year's Anthem Awards. I am so excited, y'all. I love doing this podcast. I love getting to talk to all of you and having these amazing guests on. And it just means so much to be recognized for the work that we are doing. I would do all of this without any awards, but it just really means a lot to know that what we are doing matters and that people care and appreciate the podcast for what it is. So, I'm just so deeply honored. Our team is so deeply honored. We really, really appreciated it. It means so much. I am so grateful to the entire team behind rePROs Fight Back. It is a true joy and honor to get to work with Rachel and Elena every day. They do such amazing work for the podcast in all of its forms and all of the ways, whether it's making us look good on social media or being a true thought partner on how we do the podcast in so many large and small ways. And to Elena, who has been with us, it feels like forever, but I think it's actually only been maybe like two years. But I'm just so grateful to have them on our team. And I yeah, I am still just very overwhelmed and filled with joy, and my heart is full. And thank you all. And we're so grateful to win another award. So yay! We will share pictures when we have them. Um, I'm going to be up in New York today for a reception for the Anthem Award winners. So looking forward to that and getting to meet some of the other winners. So much to look forward to. I will talk to you guys about it when I get back. Just very excited. And yeah, our team is just really happy and just so grateful and honored to have one again. And oh, I so I thank this for our in-house team, but I forgot to thank Meg, our amazing editor. She does the fantastic job of making sure I sound my best, our guests sound their best. Um, and so again, the podcast would not be what it is without Meg. So thank you so much, Meg. And also to our team at Tink, who's been doing a great job helping promote the podcast and getting the podcast out there just so more people can enjoy it. So thank you for our wonderful friends at Tink as well. Okay, I think that's like most of the people. We should also probably thank the Population Institute staff, uh, some of the team there has really also been really involved with the podcast. Heidi has done a lot to help us with the work we do with Tink. So very grateful for that. And our executive director, Kathleen, who's also just been such a big supporter of the podcast. So just thank you to everybody, and we are so excited to be doing this podcast. We are so honored to win the award and just yeah, thank you. Okay, let's see what else do I have to talk about. I am recording this early because I am going to New York last weekend when you were hearing this. Yes, I went to New York for the weekend and then went back up on Tuesday. I'm going to be in New York three times in like the next like couple weeks. It's it's a lot, but that's okay. I'm looking forward to it. But this weekend, or this past weekend, I went up to go see Waiting for Godot with my cousin and an old roommate and spend the weekend with them. And I'm very excited for that. So I will tell you about that when I get back. But looking forward to that and looking forward to going up to New York for the awards reception on today when you are hearing this. I think we'll go ahead and pause there because I don't feel like there's much else that I really want to talk about right now. Just again, so grateful and honored for this award. So thank you. With that, let's turn to this week's interview. I am very excited to talk to Jessica Waters, who is a senior scholar at American University, to talk about a new abortion restriction in Texas that is taking effect on December 4th. And you can hear all about it in my conversation with Jessica. Hi, Jessica. Thank you so much for being here today. Hello, and thank you for having me. Before we dig into this week's topic, would you like to take a second and introduce yourself?

Jessica: 5:47

Sure. So, I'm Jessica Waters. I am a senior scholar in residence at the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. And I have been working in the reproductive health law and policy field for about 25 years now.

Jennie: 6:01

So, I'm so happy to have you here today to talk about another new terrible thing, but to talk about this new law in Texas that is gonna impact medication abortion. Can you tell us a little bit about this new law?

Jessica: 6:15

Everything we talk about is joyful, right?

Jennie: 6:17

I know, right?

Jessica: 6:18

I'm sorry, y'all. I taught a class over the weekend on like reproductive rights, law, and policy, and they walked in and I was like, your weekend's not gonna get better. Like, just so you know. I'm sorry, I'm gonna be a real bummer. Yeah, yeah, we're fun at parties. Yeah. So, this new Texas law, in the vein of things that we need to talk about. So you know, Texas has long been at the forefront of restrictive abortion policy. That's nothing new, right? And it's important to point out that even before this new law, which is known as HB7, Texas had an abortion ban in place. It's not like abortions were happening in Texas, right? But what HB7 does is seek to take Texas state law and the abortion ban in place in Texas and essentially apply it beyond its borders. So, what it specifically does is it prohibits the manufacturing or distribution of mifepristone in the state, but it also says that you cannot mail, transport, deliver, prescribe, or provide abortion-inducing drugs to anyone in the state. So what that's doing is targeting out-of-state activity, right? So, if there is a doctor who is prescribing abortion medication, often known as mifepristone, to someone in the state of Texas, this law allows people to sue that doctor. Or if there is someone who is who is delivering it into the state, this law allows people to sue the company that is delivering mifepristone into the state of Texas. Even if that doctor, or there's people are in a state where abortion is legal. So, say, for example, you're a doctor in New York and you want to prescribe mifepristone for a pregnant person in Texas. This law says you can't do that.

Jennie: 8:04

This reminds me a lot of SB8, feels very much like it was modeled on that, uh, with kind of this bounty hunter type provision.

Jessica: 8:12

Yeah, they they both it this is an interesting wrinkle, and I fear though, sort of a bellwether for what we're about to see around the nation. But Texas law, you know, not only says, hey, we're going to say like you can't provide abortions in the state, but we're also going to say, let's deputize individual citizens to basically turn each other in and sue each other and rat each other out, right? And so, it uses individual citizens sort of as an arm of the state and allows them to profit from it financially. You know, this new law, HB7, it allows private individuals to bring these suits. So, like, for example, if you have the ex-boyfriend of someone who is pregnant in Texas and he is upset that she received abortion care from an out-of-state doctor, it allows him to go and sue that out-of-state doctor. But it also allows someone who's just like mad that she did it, who is not at all related to the pregnancy, to similarly bring a civil suit. That's like a suit for money. So it's there's a there's a bribery incentive here of like you can get money if you bring these suits. So, you know, Texas is essentially asking citizens to do its dirty work for it.

Jennie: 9:29

Yeah, and I feel like part of why they did that under SB8 is it made it harder for outside groups to then sue to stop the implementation of the law. Yeah. I assume that this is similar.

Jessica: 9:38

It's very similar because it's like, who do you sue? Right? Like, any individual in the state, you know, HP7 calls it a key TAM action, which essentially what that means is an individual can sue, right? Um, sort of on behalf of the government. So you'd have to, it makes it very, very challenging to stop enforcement of this before something actually happens. Um, and that's key, right? Because now what's happening is this is just like hanging like a sword over people's heads that this law is out there and you know any individual can sue under it.

Jennie: 10:08

I know supposedly this has like protections written into it, but I do just see this as like something as a tool in an abuser's toolbox that they can use to harass their partner or former partner. You know, I haven't gone into like the super close details, but I I can just think of the many ways around it, whether it's like you have to be convicted of domestic violence or something like that. And if that hasn't happened, you could still like I just see many ways that this can still be a strong tool that abusers are using against their partners.

Jessica: 10:43

Yeah, I mean let's let's be clear. This now is not law is not designed to protect women. It's just not, right? And it's not designed to protect women who may be experiencing violence or stalking or, you know, some form of sexual assault. There are nominal exceptions written into the law, but I have literally zero faith that this will be used to protect women in those types of situations.

Jennie: 11:07

So, what are we talked a little bit as we've gone forward, but maybe we can focus a little bit on the impacts and who is going to be impacted under this.

Jessica: 11:16

Yeah, yeah, right. I mean, it feels like everyone. All right, so I think like we can break it down into a few buckets, right? So when we think about the impacts of this law, first there are pregnant people in Texas. They cannot, except in very, very limited situations, almost non existent situations, receive legal abortion care in Texas. So what people in Texas have begun to do is rely on out-of-state abortion care. Some people travel out of state at considerable time and expense. Others have relied on telehealth abortion provision. So telehealth abortion provision allows someone, a doctor outside of the state, a physician outside of the state, to talk to the patient, review the patient's records, and say, yeah, I can provide this like very safe early abortion method for you and prescribe it from out of state. So it allowed for some form of access for people in states where abortion is banned. So in Texas is one of those, right? So what this means is that if you are a pregnant person in Texas, you can't get an abortion in Texas. And now you can't get likely abortion medication mailed into the state for you. So if you need an abortion, you will have to physically leave the state to receive any type of abortion care. So, like one pocket is directly though the women who may need abortion care, you know, in the immediate future. I think another huge pocket of impact is the chilling effect on doctors or abortion funds who are in other states and legally operating under, for example, their state shield law, right? So, like New York, for example, has a state law that says if you are providing abortion care, abortion is legal in Texas, and we will protect you from criminal prosecution from other states, right? So you have doctors in other states who want to provide this necessary health care and now are living under the specter of both criminal prosecution and civil liability if they provide that care, right? So that's another bucket of impact. But I think a third is Texas won't be the last state to do this. We have seen historically what Texas does first, other states then do. So, you know, the the the four the third bucket is other states are going to put copycat laws into place. And, you know, then I'd say the fourth bucket, and this might be another line of questioning, but this is not the only thing happening with mifepristone access, right? So you have Texas putting these state laws in place that say you can't get in Texas and you can't get it via telehealth. But then Texas is also, you know, joining a lawsuit to try to take miphopristone off the market entirely for the entire country, under the argument that the FDA never should have approved it. So we we are seeing attacks on mifepristone at the state level, at the federal level. We're seeing RFK, Secretary of Health and Human Services directing an investigation into the study into the safety of mifepristone. So, it's like coming from every angle, right? So, when we think about the impact, I think it's really important just to put this in the context of Texas is not acting in isolation. This is not just about people in Texas. This is a nationwide effort.

Jennie: 14:44

This is such an interesting conversation to have, especially last week. Although for my audience, there's gonna be a couple episodes that are gonna come out in between. Last week I just interviewed [Rebecca] Kelliher about her book, Just Pills. So, reading the history of this movement and, like, all of the testing and all of the hurdles to try and get it approved by the FDA. And then, so seeing them trying to attack it on like safety, like we know it's safe. There are so many studies showing it is safe in so many different ways. And it just feels very synchronous to have these conversations so close together because you know there's so much in that book talking about how countries in Latin America have been getting around bans and just the history of trying to get it approved in the US. The long and winding journey that it was.

Jessica: 15:34

Yeah, and it is no mistake that the attack right now is on mifepristone, right? Because in in the United States, post-Dobbs, you know, states can, and they are, ban abortion, right? According to the Supreme Court, they can do that. And medication abortion and telehealth are a way to still preserve some access, right? So they're these attempts are uh an attempt to ban abortion care nationwide. We know that in the United States, 63% of abortions are via medical abortion care, right? So, this is a deliberate attack to u go after access nationwide.

Jennie: 16:13

Yeah, and I think so many, I mean people who work in the movement obviously know this, and people probably listen to the podcast know this because I've talked about it before. But, you know, even just getting the ban not to like completely remove mifepristone, but to get rid of that mailing component would have such a devastating impact on abortion access because with abortion being banned in so many states, there are only so many clinics with so many workers who can only see so many patients. And if everybody has to go back to in-person, we cannot pick up that all those people who are getting telehealth abortions right now and take them back into the system and ensure people are getting the care they need.

Jessica: 16:53

No, there's no way. The infrastructure does not sustain, right? And this is this is another part of it too. When we look at like Planned Parenthoods being defunded, right, and having to close, like this is part of it. You know, we know in the larger context, we have a failure to train medical students in, for example, surgical abortion care, right? So, if we have to go back to simply surgical abortion care in some number of limited states, we're not gonna have the doctors to sustain that practice, you know, let alone if a patient can get there. I often say this sort of movement that is opposed to abortion and trying to limit access nationwide, they are very, very smart and they are very, very strategic. And they are playing the long game. And right now they're winning.

Jennie: 17:42

I think there's also that very good at narratives, we're making like big things like this would be huge and have a huge impact. Make it sound like it's not. So to the average person who isn't steeped in this, hearing that, oh, you can no longer get a telehealth abortion, like that doesn't seem like you there's still access, abortion isn't banned. Like it to a person who isn't as involved in this, it may not seem like the devastating deal that it would be.

Jessica: 18:13

I mean, the reality is that abortion access now depends on where you live and how much money you have. Absolutely. Bottom line, right? And telehealth abortion, you know, unless we start to see these Texas type efforts, telehealth abortion helps to combat a little bit of that, right? Because it says you can live in a state that bans abortion care, but still receive safe care. In the absence of that, we really do return to pre-row days where you have to have the means to travel to a different state. And, you know, that's that's virtually impossible for the most marginalized people in our country.

Jennie: 18:53

Yeah, I was just thinking that same thing. And like you need to have the information to know that that is even an option. Because, you know, the the purpose of all of these bans and changes in law is to confuse people, to make them not aware of their options. If you don't know where to look to find out where you can get telehealth abortion, or you don't know abortion funds exist to be able to help you be able to afford that telehealth abortion, you know, the information gap can sometimes be a huge gap that is preventing people from accessing the care they need.

Jessica: 19:23

A huge gap. And imagine if you're 17 years old, right? And you're you're trying to navigate all of this. Or imagine if you are a pregnant woman with existing children and you're trying to figure out like how do I navigate all of this and I'm low income already. Or imagine if you're having some form of health emergency and you can't figure out where where to get care. But I think it's important that that information gap obviously has devastating impacts for patients, but it has devastating impacts for the medical profession. You know, imagine being a doctor in Texas and you have a patient come to you in an emergency medical situation where you know the standard of care to preserve her health and preserve her fertility is abortion care, but you can't do it. You know, this idea that the practice of medicine is being overcome by draconian state laws should be truly frightening outside of the abortion context, right? This idea that a doctor's first call is to their hospital general counsel, right? Not necessarily, you know, thinking through like what is the best medical standard of care here through no fault of their own. That terrifies me.

Jennie: 20:31

So, we touched on this a little bit, but can we maybe dive a little bit deeper into some of the tension with the shield laws in this Texas law? You know, we've slowly started to see them come up in court cases, but there's still, you know, we don't know how well they'll stand up as prosecutions move forward. So, maybe we can dig into that a little bit.

Jessica: 20:53

Yeah, so you know, a shield law, which we see some version of in, you know, close to 20 states, I think, at this point around the country. You know, shield laws say if you are a medical professional operating in our state, we will shield you from prosecution. And some states specifically call out um abortion care, some specifically call out gender affirming care. But they say, like, we will protect your right to practice medicine in this state, and we will protect you from outside suit. So you have these shield laws, and I think the one really being teed up right now is one in New York. New York has a shield law that says, you know, we're not going to allow a judgment to be enforced against you in New York from Ken Paxton in Texas. But Texas knows what they're doing, right? And when I say Texas, I mean Texas as a tool of the anti-abortion movement, right? And this Texas law very specifically, you know, creates liability for anyone who ships or prescribes into Texas. And then it very specifically says it is not a defense to liability if you are in a state with a shield law. And it has that language in the law itself in HB7. So, you've got Texas law very squarely saying we allow for civil liability to the tune of $100,000 if you ship mifepristone into Texas. And we also are saying very flatly, we are not going to recognize the shield law of another state. So Texas is very deliberately teeing up a federal suit, right? Because if you have two state laws that so squarely conflict, that has to end up in federal court at some point. And I think this fight is being picked intentionally, and I think it's being picked intentionally right now, given the makeup of the current court. So this tension with shield laws, we're seeing it acutely between New York and Texas, where, you know, the attorney general, I believe, of Texas has said, I'm sorry, of New York has said, like, no, like, you know, we're not going to allow this to happen. Texas has actually gone after a doctor in New York whose name is Maggie Carpenter, and has said is trying to enforce judgment against Maggie Carpenter for shipping mifepristone allegedly into Texas, you know, prescribing mifepristone in Texas, allegedly. And New York has said we'll shield you. And Texas is saying no, you won't, right? These threats are not hypothetical, and the legal challenge is very real and very deliberate.

Jennie: 23:32

So, this isn't the only threat we are seeing to mifepristone. What else are you kind of keeping an eye on right now?

Jessica: 23:38

So, I am keeping an eye on the federal lawsuit percolating— actually in Texas, as things do— but you may remember about two years ago, there was a suit that went up to the U.S. Supreme Court that was seeking to take mifepristone off the market nationwide. And there was a group called the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which was a group of doctors who do not provide abortion care, but believed that they had standing or the legal right to sue to take mifepristone off the market. That went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court heard oral arguments, did briefing, did everything, and then at the last minute threw the case out on standing grounds, essentially said, You coalition of medical professionals who do not provide abortion care, you don't have any harm here. You're the wrong people to sue. You don't have standing. And importantly, they did not decide that case, right? If the Supreme Court says you don't have standing, they don't reach the merits of the case. So the case got sort of thrown back down to the lower courts. I think, you know, average public understanding is like, oh, Miphopris don't stayed on the market. Which it did, but that case didn't go away. And what's happening now is that several states have intervened to take over that case. So the plaintiffs will no longer be this group of abortion of medical professionals who don't provide abortion. The plaintiffs will now be states that have some form of opposition to abortion. So that case is going back up to the Supreme Court. And, you know, as you pointed out earlier, that case seeks a couple of things. Like one, in their best case scenario, they reverse the FDA decision to put mifepristone on the market and it goes away entirely. But they also seek, if they can't get that, to roll back, for example, the FDA's approval of telehealth abortion, right? So, I'm really keeping an eye on that case because I think people think it's gone, but it's not. It's just percolating in Texas.

Jennie: 25:41

It was definitely one of those like terms that it was like, oh, look, abortion won at the Supreme Court twice because of like the EMTALA case, which also wasn't decided, and that case. And so the way they were covered was that abortion rights won when it was actually they were just sent back. Like, neither of them were decided in favor.

Jessica: 26:05

They were not long-term victories. They were short-term like reprieves. Yeah. You know, so you know, but those cases have not gone away, and they will both be back up there, as I suspect will this some form of case challenging uh shield laws. So yeah, we're not out of the woods.

Jennie: 26:26

No, I it just it just feels like there is so much still coming on all of this, and I'm sure things we have not thought of yet that are going to be tested in in states.

Jessica: 26:37

Well, and at the same time, I mean, there's the Texas law, there's state laws, there's the shield law issue, there's the federal suit percolating, which five states are attempting to join together. But then we also have RFK directing the FDA to reopen a study of the safety of mifepristone. You know, we have we have decades of clinical trials demonstrating the safety of mifepristone, and we have decades of actual patient data demonstrating the safety of mifepristone, but RFK has has directed the FDA to undertake a study about the safety of mifepristone. So that's opening back up as well, right? Could could the FDA, under a direction from the Trump administration, reverse course completely, even given decades of data proving mifepristone's safety.

Jennie: 27:28

And y'all, if you want to know more about the basis they are using to challenge that, the study that was done, all the air quotes, because it's not a study, it's a bunch of junk science. There's an episode talking about it. We'll link to in the show notes so you can learn more about that supposed study. And that's not even to get into Comstock considerations that like waiting for that shoe to drop at some point.

Jessica: 27:53

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so the Comstock Act, this this law from the 1870s that prohibits the dissemination of obscene material through the mail, right? And that's been amended to include other types of carriers. But when you go back and you look at the history of the Comstock Act, there was this guy, Anthony Comstock in the 1870s, who had all sorts of thoughts about what he thought was obscene, right? And he was like, and he worked for the Postal Service. And he was like, I am going to stop this spread of obscenity through the Postal Service and managed to work with federal lawmakers and got this law passed and included in the definition of obscene material is anything that produces an abortion. So we have this law on the books that has never been fully repealed, that has made this resurgence in the past couple of years. And, you know, I I remember like, you know, a couple of years back, I had been watching these suits before they went to the Supreme Court, and I was like, wait, what the Comstock Act is back, right? And like you find yourself going into class and being like, I would like you to read this law from 1873. And they're like, what is happening? And I'm like, yes, I'm also questioning all of my life decisions right now, but you know, so but that is the basis of one of these federal lawsuits, or a basis in the federal lawsuit, is that shipping mifepristone across state lines violates the Comstock Act. And, you know, when you read the language of the Comstock Act, it's kind of scary because there is language in the Comstock Act that seemingly bars the shipment of mifepristone across state lines. Does that make any sense? Is it good public policy? Is it good public health? Absolutely not. But this law is still out there.

Jennie: 29:41

And it might not just apply to mifepristone, right? Like it could like anything to induce an abortion, so like it could be real bad.

Jessica: 29:49

And anything like anything anyone decides induces abortion, even if it doesn't, right? You know, uh the way that particularly I think this administration has played fast and loose with science and medicine and what they are calling an "abortifacient" versus not, you know, this seeming conflation of things like Plan B or contraceptive methods with abortion, you know, that's all very deliberate. And I think any of those things could seemingly be banned under, you know, the shipment could be banned under the Comstock Act. Again, does that make any sense? No. But a lot of this doesn't make any sense.

Jennie: 30:25

Yeah, we saw that really, like, really strongly from the administration a couple months ago when there was the talk about. The $10 million worth of contraceptives that are slated to be burned still hasn't happened, still pushing for it to not happen. But they were arguing that it there were "abortifacients." And they're not. It is birth control. And but that is like one of the first times you've really seen an administration like publicly really strongly say that versus like those rumblings underneath where you would hear the the conflation. But this was like cited as source in the like New York Times, or I think, if I remember correctly.

Jessica: 31:05

Yeah, and I mean the absence of science and medicine in in a lot of these policies. I mean, I think the the press conference about Tylenol is a perfect example. We are seemingly in a time when the president can go on national TV and give a press conference with the power of the office behind him and give misinformation to the American people. And if you are a person who doesn't follow these issues every second like we do, and you hear the president of the United States say Tylenol isn't safe for your pregnancy, you're not gonna take Tylenol. And then you're gonna have a fever that spikes. And that's gonna lead to all sorts of horrible outcomes for pregnancies, right? So I just, it is remarkable to me how far we've come from like let's have a reasonable discussion about the safety of different drugs during pregnancy. That's an important discussion to have, right? If that had been the press conference, if the press conference had been like we should think about this. And there has been a study that shows a possible association, maybe sort of, and like let's dig deeper. Fine, right? But that that's not what we're doing.

Jennie: 32:23

I also found it interesting that Tylenol was the thing they picked because what is the usual talking point, right? That medication abortion is safer than Tylenol.

Jessica: 32:34

Safer than Tylenol. Yep. I said the same thing. This the day it came out. I was like, mark my words. They're related. This is coming. This is the talking point. Yep. I know. I have I have nothing to back me up unless I don't think's true. No, no, I I remember talking to some friends and saying, y'all are gonna think I'm nuts.

Jennie: 32:52

Well, because it could have been a C the metaphine, right? Like that could have been the thing, right? Because that is the drug, right? Not Tylenol.

Jessica: 32:59

Right. Or it could have been vasectomies, but you know any number of things. Yeah.

Jennie: 33:05

Okay. So, I always like to wrap up our conversations, not just talking about the things that are bad, but ways our audience can get involved. So what can the audience do right now to get involved in these issues?

Jessica: 33:16

Well, vote, vote, vote, vote, and vote, right? That's that's that's a big one. But you know, I think it is also really taking the time to understand these issues, right? I think sometimes you can feel insane trying to argue against some of the rhetoric that's put out there, right? You know, when you hear rhetoric of like, you know, this this law is to protect women, or, you know, this law, you know, or this like press conference around Tylenol and pregnancy is because we care about women and children. And I think it's really educating ourselves to be like, actually, wait, let's step back and let's talk about like what the science shows, let's talk about what the facts are, let's talk about what the medicine is. And I think it's important that we're situating this in the larger conversation, right? There's a there's an element of like abortion exceptionalism, of like we're going to talk about abortion care and reproductive health care is somehow different than health care. And we should be very clear. If there is precedent for drugs to be taken off of the market because of political whims, that's going to go much farther than just the question of mifepristone. So, like, we need to be situating it in that way and be thinking about, you know, how much ground are we willing to cede to political pressures when it comes to questions of medicine and science. So, you know, I would say the voting, I would say the educating. And then I would say donating to abortion funds. There is so much happening in this administration that I've had so many people who are relatively steeped in these issues saying there doesn't seem to be much happening around reproductive health care. There doesn't seem to be much happening around abortion. And there is, right? But what we're seeing is there's been like a drop-off in donations to, for example, abortion funds. So people need to redouble their efforts there. This issue has not gone away. The number of unplanned pregnancies is not going down. The need for abortion is not going down. So we really do need people to stay invested in keeping that care available. And one way to do that is donations to abortion funds, particularly as people need to travel more. You know, if you can't get an Ifrapristin via telehealth and you have to travel to another state, that costs a lot of money. So being able to help facilitate care in that way.

Jennie: 35:44

That's great. Because just before this, I am a usual monthly donor to a couple abortion funds. But I was like, you know, I haven't done like a one-off in a while. So right before our conversation, I actually did donate to the DC Abortion Fund. So look at that. Love it. Just it felt like a day I needed to show them a little love today. I don't know why.

Jessica: 36:06

Yeah, I do. I have my monthly donations set up to various things, but yes, every once in a while, yeah.

Jennie: 36:11

I used to do that with the rage donating, right? Like I had my monthlies, but then there was the rage donating, and that is what has fallen off, right? I think it has nationwide. I'm trying to be better about that.

Jessica: 36:23

Yeah, absolutely. Well, because there's only like you can only be enraged for so long, right? And then you're exhausted. And I think we're in the exhausted phase as a country, and we have to find a way to not be there because these issues are not going away.

Jennie: 36:38

And as always, what I do, my usual pitch for abortion funds is if you can, it is always super helpful to be a monthly donor. That doesn't mean you're donating $100 a month or whatever, you even if it's just a couple dollars a month because they know they are getting that money every month and it's easier for them to budget. Absolutely. Jessica, thank you so much for being here.

Jessica: 37:00

I had such a great time talking to you. Thank you for having me. I had a great time talking to you, even though this is not joyful subject matter.

Jennie: 37:08

Okay, y'all. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jessica. I had a great time talking to her about what this new law means. Like I said in the interview, it has not gone into effect yet. It goes into effect December 4th. So keep an eye out. And with that, just again, our just huge gratitude for the award. We are just so deeply honored, and thank you all for being such an amazing audience. We love you all, and we will see you next week. If you have any questions, comments, or topics you would like us to cover, always feel free to shoot me an email. You can reach me at jennie@reprosfightback.com, or you can find us on social media. We're at rePROs Fight Back on Facebook and Twitter, or @reprosfb on Instagram. If you love our podcast and want to make sure more people find it, take the time to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Or if you want to make sure to support the podcast, you can also donate on our website at reprosfightback.com. Thanks all.